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Achtung! 1979 Spitfire 1500 - good news, bad news...


N Dentressangle

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Tale of the purchase is here:

Collection is scheduled for Wednesday. Engine runs like a great, and drives fine. However, most of the other stuff like wipers and lights are AWOL. Was looking at trailering it home, but the nearest trailer hire place is 20 miles away on the other side of Gloucester. Fuck that. So, Plan B coming into effect is to just go and make the electrics work then drive it back. From the stuff that's not working, I'd say there's a fuse which is suspect #1: http://www.triumphspitfire.com/Fuses.html Not the frigging Space Shuttle, is it?

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51 minutes ago, N Dentressangle said:

Tale of the purchase is here:

Collection is scheduled for Wednesday. Engine runs like a great, and drives fine. However, most of the other stuff like wipers and lights are AWOL. Was looking at trailering it home, but the nearest trailer hire place is 20 miles away on the other side of Gloucester. Fuck that. So, Plan B coming into effect is to just go and make the electrics work then drive it back. From the stuff that's not working, I'd say there's a fuse which is suspect #1: http://www.triumphspitfire.com/Fuses.html Not the frigging Space Shuttle, is it?

No, but it is British. And...

s-l500 (1).jpg

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Collection scheduled for 1030 tomorrow. Luckily the weather seems to be OK - rain overnight but dry by 10am, which is important when the car has no wipers. Ideally we'll get them working in some way before we set off, but if not then I'm well prepared:

VCdFY5M.jpg

Driving up there with a mate, then planning on doing A46 all the way home. Got breakdown cover with recovery if I get an irretrievable FTP.

excitement-300x217.png

No idea why. It's a crappy old car. But I am.

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  • N Dentressangle changed the title to Achtung! 1979 Spitfire 1500! One more sleep until collection

I loved mine.....  took me all over Europe and the only issue was a flat tyre once. 

Then I noticed the standard the previous 'restoration' work had been done to.......  I lost interest from them on and ran it into the ground. It was utterly fucked under all the shininess. 

East to work on though - very agricultural. 

I've still got boxes of new springs, shocks and a crap load of other bits in the back of the garage too..... 

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7 minutes ago, Back_For_More said:

I loved mine.....  took me all over Europe and the only issue was a flat tyre once. 

Then I noticed the standard the previous 'restoration' work had been done to.......  I lost interest from them on and ran it into the ground. It was utterly fucked under all the shininess. 

East to work on though - very agricultural. 

I've still got boxes of new springs, shocks and a crap load of other bits in the back of the garage too..... 

Once I've made it actually work properly again, fix #1 is probably the seats. Currently black vinyl buckets with no headrest. They should look like these:

s-l1600.jpg

Obvs the nasty and wrong B&W stick on front plate will be going, and the correct Spitfire 1500 decals stuck on bonnet and boot.

Sorted the insurance - £74 🤣 And taxing historics is always such a pleasure too

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Had one back in the day, soft top in bright orange, really like to chuck the tail out if you're not paying attention on corners. My soft top leaked so plastic bags on seats to stop your arse getting wet. Total hoot to drive although my old dear couldn't get in the bloody thing as it was so low, use to carry 2 mates and myself,1  in each seat and 1 lying across the back. Eventually managed to get the engine to eject a conrod through it's casing on way to work one morning.

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Long ago.... In my 'pimply yoof'.... BIL had a 'mate' leave his spit on the drive, then jet off somewhere.

He left vague reference to 'vague steering/wander'... Very Vague 🙄

I popped the front.. BIL heaved steering = rack moved l/r about 1/2" 😱

I unclamped the rack, wrapped several sheets of 'very gritty' sanding disc [folded in half/gritty both sides] in the shagged bushings and whingged the clamps back on.

He collected the car and hooned off....

🤐 Whatevvz

Hope it's everything you Hope 👍

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First fix completed.

The PO but one had fitted a Kenlowe fan. Nice idea, but they'd wired it up to run all the time ignition was on. Duh - waste loads of power and make your engine run cold all the time...

Quick bit of re-wiring and removal of about 57899 miles of insulation tape and we now have a fan which kcks in more or less where it should. Can always do some fine adjustments later.

Now need to order some halogen headlamps. It's on sealed beams, and they were friggin scary in the Series LR so fuck knows what they'll be like in something capable of more than 40mph

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1 hour ago, Mrs6C said:

Very nice! I have a couple of Mk2 Spitfires and have always enjoyed the general model.

The colour is very pleasant. As it appears to have been described as a 'Racing Green', it could be the Aston Martin version. IIRC it is around that colour and metallic as well.

There's a photographic record with the car of the restoration it had in 1998. I'll post some of the pics up if anyone's interested. I was hoping there'd be a mention of the paint colour so I could get a code and sort out a rattle can but all there is is this:

Lsr5TlF.jpg

Glad I didn't pay for that one!

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3 minutes ago, SiC said:

Paint colour probably going to be different to what the code says now. Modern paint centres should be able to sample the colour from the part and match to that. 

Yep, Bailey Paints round the corner from me will be able to sort it out. Car was originally white - pics later!

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3 hours ago, N Dentressangle said:

 

Lsr5TlF.jpg

 

Stone Street is a very exclusive sort after area between Borough Green and Sevenoaks consisting of large houses with long gated driveways cut into the woodland so i'm sure the Mr Carpenter had suitably deep pockets.

There used to be a restoration place called Classic sportscar services in nearby Otford.

That colour makes it special too.

2014-04-05132906_zpsbbf09b31.thumb.jpg.ef7cbdf43a7baf331745f5262791ffbf.jpg

This is the sort of 'old tat' I used to come across in Stone Street.

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